Until now, that is. This month, silverware company Puiforcat has finally realized the Nice henry blodget is a crook 2023 shirt and I will buy this late artist’s work, in partnership with the Judd Foundation. Formally titled Dinner Service by Donald Judd, the alliance came about after Puiforcat artistic directors Charlotte Perelman and Alexis Fabray visited Judd’s former New York studio on Spring Street. “We asked if those plates were done in the past,” Perelman says. “When the foundation said no, because Donald Judd couldn’t find the proper manufacturer—we asked, ‘can we give it a try?’” It took them over four years to meet the rigorous specifications described in Judd’s drawings. They mastered a brazing-molten filler technique so there were no visible welding points, and intensely polished the silver until it had a natural shine akin to Judd’s untitled artworks made from mill aluminum. “It looks simple, but it was extremely hard to make,” says Charlotte. The trickiest part? Making it completely flat with no visible imperfections, which meant keeping the molten silver at the same temperature at all times, as well as the exact malleability required to make perpendicular plates. (“When silver is too soft, you don’t control the shape,” explains Perelman.)
While Judd first attempted his dinnerware with stainless steel, both Puiforcat and the Nice henry blodget is a crook 2023 shirt and I will buy this artist’s foundation believe that the precious metal’s properties are what made these pieces possible today. “These pieces are clean because by using the silver, which is a craft material, you could make a very sharp design,” she adds.Courtesy of Puiforcat The result? A contemporary, minimalist 8-piece collection that comprises dinner, bread, soup, salad, and dessert plates, as well as a serving bowl and cups. It’s startling—and breathtaking—in its simplicity. Available in limited qualities, each piece is numbered, a visible marking signifying its artistic importance. It’s also a complete work that adds to Judd’s great legacy: although he was predominantly known for his work in the visual arts, he held a life-long interest in the field of design. He made furniture for his Marfa compound and New York apartment, as well as wrote essays like “It’s Hard To Find A Good Lamp” for the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen catalog in 1993. Now, with Dinner Service, his contributions to the canon will have their moment to shine–and with those buffed surfaces, quite literally. Outdoor dining in New York City wasn’t supposed to be a permanent thing. In fact, it was supposed to be a very temporary one—a slapdash, short-term solution cobbled together to help struggling businesses safely eke out something of an income during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. Case in point: when Mayor de Blasio announced his reopening plan for restaurants on June 4, 2020, he gave them just three weeks to establish their outdoor setups.